Yitzhak Ben-Zvi

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (24 November 1884-23 April 1963) was President of Israel from 16 December 1952 to 23 April 1963, succeeding Chaim Weizmann and preceding Zalman Shazar. He was a member of the social democratic Mapai party.

Biography
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was born in Poltava, Russian Empire on 24 November 1884 to a family of Ukrainian Jews, and he became an active Zionist. He narrowly escaped the pogroms of 1906 and left for Palestine. Ben-Zvi was exiled by the Turks in 1915, and he joined David Ben-Gurion in the United States before returning to Palestine in 1918. He became a member of the Jewish Legion during World War I, fighting alongside the British. Ben-Zvi was a co-founder of the Histadrut trade union, and he was also a member of the self-governing National Council for Palestine Jews. He served as its chairman from 1931 and its president from 1944, and he was one of the signatories of Israel's 1948 declaration of independence. He entered the Knesset that same year, and he was President of Israel from Chaim Weizmann's death in 1952 until his own death in 1963.